AEW Rampage: Holiday Bash Review - December 23, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

AR Fox and Top Flight Won the $300,000 Three Kings Christmas Casino Trios Royale

This sounded like an absolute mess on paper, but it ended up working out well and being mildly entertaining. There were so many people in the ring throughout that the eliminations were difficult to follow, but they furthered a few stories and made the most of the confusing rules. Plus, the final few minutes were fun. Blackpool Combat Club winning felt like a guarantee, so Top Flight picking up the upset victory instead was a pleasant surprise.

House of Black Interrupted Eddie Kingston and Ortiz

It's about damn time Kingston resurfaced on AEW TV. It feels like he's barely been featured (and no, I'm not counting the Dark shows) since losing to Sammy Guevara by technical disqualification on the Grand Slam edition of Rampage three months ago, and now it looks like he and Ortiz are kicking off a feud with House of Black. That's fine, but the story of whether Ortiz will turn on Kingston is slightly silly because I don't expect that to happen. Both of these teams need notable wins right now, so having them work with each other is questionable.

AEW TBS Champion Jade Cargill def. Vertvixen

I've seen Vertvixen in action before on the Dark shows, and since she's never won a single match to my memory, it was weird this was actually advertised in advance. Vertvixen never had a chance of winning, of course, so I have no idea why this needed to be almost five minutes long. It was a whole lot of nothing. Cargill continues to spin her wheels until she reaches 50-0, which should hopefully be soon so we can get to the next step of her character development.

Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett def. Billy Gunn and AEW World Tag Team Champion Anthony Bowens

I have no idea what the point was of doing this match when we're bound to see almost the exact same match except with Max Caster replacing Gunn when the titles are on the line. I guess the idea was for the heels to earn a championship opportunity, but it came across like a waste of time to me and the match not being anything out of the ordinary didn't help. I can't bring myself to care about this program.

Overall Show

This was the epitome of a holiday show in that absolutely nothing mattered, including the opener. Yes, it exceeded expectations, but it's not as if Fox and Top Flight became number one contenders to the AEW World Trios Championship or anything along those lines. I hope they get a push out of it, but time will tell. The rest of the show was very tame and featured nothing you need to go out of your way to see.

SEE MORE: Rampage Reviews